Ipa

My IPA has stopped pushing bubbles through the air lock, it has been in there since thursday night so about 3-4 days. Should I wait a solid week before I move on? What about secconday fermentation, I have five gallon buckets from Home Depot, will these work? Does seccondary fermentation need to be air locked? How lond does an IPA or any beer for that matter need to be seccondary fermented? Any answers to these questions will help.

One more when I was cooking my wort, after tranfering it to my carboy there was some burn on the bottom is this terrible, bad, drinkable, or fine?

i'd leave it at least a week before you transfer to secondary, and take a specific gravity reading so you know it's complete.

you will need an airlock for the secondary to protect your beer from crap falling in and contaminating it.

general rule for time is 3 weeks before bottling/kegging, so 1 week primary, 2 weeks secondary is what a lot of people do. taking readings is important, however....generally higher gravity beers will need longer in the primary.

the burn in your kettle will cause some carmelization and darken your color. you may wish to add your extract at the end of the boil. be sure to remove it from heat and stir well.

I would wait at least 7 days before moving it from the primary. If you choose to secondary you could do so after 7 days; if you go straight to the bottle, give it 14 days in the primary.

If you want to secondary, a glass vessel is recommended as it provides a better oxygen barrier than plastic but food grade plastic buckets should work for short secondaries (2 weeks). You will need an airlock for secondary.

Secondaries last anywhere from 2 weeks to several months depending on the beer style and OG. A regular American IPA should be 2-3 weeks in secondary.

hopsalot said:

I have five gallon buckets from Home Depot, will these work?

Click to expand...

No these won't work. I am assuming you mean those orange ones? I see they now have new ones with measurements on them ( white buckets) but I don't think these are food grade either. You need food grade buckets; like the fermenter.

Not to hijack this thread, but now that the orange Home Depot buckets are mentioned....i understand these are not a good idea for primary or secondary, but how about using them as a bottling bucket?

I have one and i currently use it only for a sanitizer container.

Mawa